Free Queen: The Complete Works by Georg Purvis

writing beautiful and innovative songs, emerging as a new kind of songwriting team. Although they wouldn’t collaborate, per se, until ‘Is This The World We Created...?’ nearly a decade later, they were instinctively adept at synergistic teamwork. It’s obvious that Freddie wrote ‘The March Of The Black Queen’ after hearing ‘White Queen (As It Began)’; Freddie’s new composition then inspired Brian to restructure ‘Father To Son’ as a powerful tour de force, leading Freddie to rethink his own ‘Ogre Battle’. ‘Nevermore’ and ‘Some Day, One Day’ sound like cousins, both articulating a similar theme of abandoned love.
    It was because of this kind of creativity, and the distinctly loose yet interdependent lyrical theme running throughout the songs, that they decided to label the album sides ‘Side White’ (Brian’s songs) and ‘Side Black’ (Freddie’s songs). Notice the distinct light and shade in all the songs: Brian’s forceful ‘Father To Son’ blends together several dark passages before light dawns towards the end with a singalong acoustic segment, and segues effortlessly into the more elegant and textural ‘White Queen (As It Began)’. Freddie’s comic-relief number ‘The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke’ diminishes gradually into the mournful ‘Nevermore’, which in turn descends into the sinister ‘The March Of The Black Queen’, making the album a veritable panoply of sounds and sensations.
    Roger, too, was adapting to the new songwriting approach. His first composition for Queen, ‘Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll’, wasn’t the most promising, and although most listeners regarded his second song, ‘The Loser In The End’, as far worse, it ties in beautifully with ‘Father To Son’, a song which inspired Roger to write his paean to mothers everywhere. Only John didn’t contribute any songs to the album; still regarding himself as “the new boy”, it would take extenuating circumstances (Brian’s hepatitis and ulcer the following year) for him to finally write his first song. Perhaps he just couldn’t relate to the darker themes of the album, and, since he would later be known for writing strictly pop songs, it’s impossible to imagine a lighthearted pop-rock ditty fitting anywhere within this seamless album.
    Production duties were split between Roy Thomas Baker and the band, but John Anthony wasn’t back on board. There was animosity between Freddie and Anthony, a clash of egos in a creative environment with neither side willing to compromise; the more amicable Baker was preferred and put in charge of identifying each member’s creative forte and channelling it into something cohesive. Because of the range of musical experimentation in the album, Baker must have been overwhelmed by all the new and unfamiliar sounds, so it’s not surprising that a second producer was invited to assist him. Initially, David Bowie was approached to produce the album (he had accepted this type of invitation for Lou Reed’s Transformer in 1972); though flattered, Bowie declined because he was currently busy recording Pin Ups before commencing another new and ambitiousproject, eventually released as Diamond Dogs . So the band approached another familiar face and asked Robin Geoffrey Cable to help with some of the band’s loftier ambitions.
    Queen had certainly changed within a year: each band member was becoming more outspoken with his ideas, none more so than Freddie. It must have been a marked contrast to Cable, who had first met the vocalist when he was a timid, reserved person, and was suddenly confronted with a song like ‘The March Of The Black Queen’. Since that song was co-produced by Cable, Baker and the band, he was asked to help with ‘Nevermore’ and ‘Funny How Love Is’, a song that he must have felt more at home with, as it resembled the ‘wall of sound’ technique made famous by Phil Spector in the 1960s. This was the technique used by Cable when recording